Some Recovered Things
by Magi Silverwolf
Summary: Tony had been ... not /fine/, because after losing the love of his life, who would be? But he had been holding it together, no matter what JARVIS & Rhodey said. Then the Mandarin happened. Phil still had gaps in his memories, but reconnecting with JARVIS certainly shed light on things. Now it's his turn to be the Calvary. (IronAgent Triology; Rated due to triggers)
1. Tony

**Disclaimer:** I do not own the original canon nor am I making any profit from writing this piece. All works are accredited to their original authors, performers, and producers while this piece is mine. No copyright infringement is intended. I acknowledge that all views and opinions expressed herein are merely my interpretations of the characters and situations found within the original canon and may not reflect the views and opinions of the original author(s), producer(s), and/or other people.

**Warnings:** This story may contain material that is not suitable for all audiences and may offend some readers. This piece in particular has suicidal thoughts & ideation (Tony is not in a good place). Please utilize understanding of personal sensitivities before and while reading.

**Author's Note:** So…I got distracted by a lot of things since I published the second part of this trilogy. But hey, I got here, didn't I? I'm breaking it into more parts than I expected, just so y'all can have what I've got. Oh, and because I keep getting comments on it: if you do not agree with my warnings, feel free to _**not**_ review about them. I make sure to get the obvious triggers, but even when there isn't anything beyond canon-typical stuff, I have the generic warning in place due to my habit of writing about queer issues, women/minority issues, and paganism, which draws in weirdos almost as often as I get people pitching a fit about calling out abusive characters. The warning about _offensive_ material serves as more than simply a trigger warning holder. It's also the notice that a reader may have issues in general and that if they need to walk away, they can (and should!) without feeling any guilt.

**Challenge/Competition Block:****  
Stacked with: **MC4A (SpBingo; Ship; War; BAON; ToS; StL; SIN; Star; Fence; ER; AV; T3; SN; FR; O3)**  
Individual Challenges: **Neurodivergent; Flags & Ribbons (Y); Letter of the Day; Team Logic; Marvelous Cinema; Location, Location, Location; Themes & Things A [Love] (Y); Themes & Things B [Guilt] (Y)  
**Space Address (Prompt):** Spring Bingo [2D] (Fire); Tony Stark Bingo [R1] (Screen Cap from IM3)  
**Representation(s):** IronAgent/QPR; Superheroes/Government Service; Team Defense Squad  
**Bonus Challenge(s): **For the Vine; Lovely Coconuts; Wind Beneath; Bast's Blessing; Second Verse (Persistence Still; White Dress; Found Family; Nontraditional; Sneeze Weasel; Zucchini Bread; Middle Name; Spinning Plates; Unwanted Advice); Chorus (Wabi Sabi; Machismo; Tomorrow's Shade; A Long Dog; Eternal Boredom; Larger than Life; Unicorn)  
**Tertiary Bonus Challenge(s):** T3 (Terse; Toad); SN (Rail); FR (n/a); O3 (Oath)**  
Word Count:** 928

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**Some Recovered Things**  
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"Grief is a world you walk through skinned, unshelled." – Ariel Levy  
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This was his fault.

That was the thought that went through Tony's head as he watched Pepper falling into the flames below, after having missed her hand by inches. That was the problem with being a genius: even when seemingly otherwise occupied, one had the mental capacity to do that kind of reflection. He had erroneously believed that he could manage to save those he loved if only he had tried harder, been faster, _done more_. Yet everything he did just meant the destruction he left behind grew. Mistakes he had made years ago just kept coming back to haunt him.

It would have been better, maybe, if he had just died in that Afghan cave.

Phil would have mourned him but maybe he wouldn't have died facing down an alien because Tony wasn't there to back him up as promised.

Happy wouldn't be lying in a hospital bed. Maya wouldn't have been shot. Pepper wouldn't have fallen. His bots, his innocent babies, wouldn't be lying at the bottom of a cliff waiting for a rescue that would probably be too late, if it even happened. But he never was good with kids, was he? Not even a full twelve hours with one and Tony nearly got him killed.

He just never could stop fucking up, could he?

Rogers was _right_. Tony had to stop pretending to be a hero.

All it did was put people hurt.

It got them _killed_.

Over the crackling flames and distant sounds of combat, he heard footsteps on the metal grating. Tony's mind supplied a poetic analogy to that slow march to the steady approach of Death coming to claim her Merchant. It was fitting, in many ways. That was probably the Medieval Literature degree talking, though, so he could probably forget it. (It would have made Phil laugh, if he had still been around to do so, which was _his fault_ as well.) Still, as Tony climbed the steps to the upper catwalk to meet his fate, his inner voice whispered how he had spent a lifetime setting the world on fire, so being consumed by flames in the end was practically Grecian.

The distance from one end of the catwalk to the other seemed both short and long at the same. Killian was smirking from his end. Tony knew that he had to end this fight, that giving up was not any more an option than letting that nuke hit New York would have been. Killian could not be allowed to win, because if he did, then a lot more people would die.

That would also be on him.

More innocent bystanders would be added to his _ledger_, as Romanoff would call it. She would know, wouldn't she? She and Barton had the highest confirmed direct kill counts out of the Avengers, and theirs were less the byproduct of combat to boot. Both of them had spent years as _independent contractors_ before being picked up by SHIELD. Agent had mentioned more than once how their habit of viewing people as commodities disturbed him, even after so many years of asset logistics. It still would have been nice to have been able to call on them—on any of the Avengers, really.

God, he had fucked up Phil's plan for that, just like he had always fucked things up.

Now the world was burning around him.

It did nothing to warm the spot inside him that had been as cold as an Afghan cave since Fury's announcement about Phil's death. The cold emptiness was exhausting. Bit by bit, Tony had felt the pieces of his life falling away over the last couple of months. With each piece, Tony had lost a little bit more willpower to do the boring shit that Agent had always claimed was important like sleeping and eating. If the way Rhodey had taken to shoving food at him was anything to go by, his platypus knew just how much Tony had just given up on things, how much he was only holding because he was too cowardly to do the deed quickly.

(Melinda would have taken him to task directly, but that was another person he had failed and then lost. Maybe if he hadn't been too late to back up Phil, she would have stuck around, but _he hadn't_ and well, people never did stick around long if they didn't have to.)

Facing Killian in some cliché parody of an old western, Tony knew it would be so easy to make it look like the asshole had simply gotten in a lucky blow. JARVIS would get Rhodey away. His baby boy would understand how that Tony would have wanted that, even without the top-secret protocol that Tony had made specifying it. Maybe if he died in flames, he would be warm again finally.

"Shame," Killian mocked, not sounding remorseful in the least. "I would have caught her."

Any thought of simply giving into death vanished like fog under the Malibu sun. Mock _him_ and Tony didn't care (he already knew how worthless he really was, so it didn't matter if anyone said it), but mock the death of his loved ones? Oh, fuck that shit. If Tony wouldn't tolerate it from _Captain fucking America_ to honor Agent, he sure the _hell_ wasn't going to tolerate it from some wannabe Dr. Jekyll just because he was a little tired of living.

This was his fault, but he would be damned if he wasn't going to find some way to _fix it_.

He was a mechanic, after all.

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To Be Continued  
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	2. Ward

**Warnings:** In addition to potentially offensive content, there is reference to abusive/controlling "love" and threats of violence outside of the context of "battling evil".

**Author's Note:** I should probably remind y'all at this point that I've shifted the start of the first season of _Agents of SHIELD_ slightly. Basically, at least the first episode has happened (obviously, because they're together) but not much more. Certainly not enough that Grant is _irredeemably_ Hydra or that Simmons is too deep into her canon prejudice against metahumans. It should also be noted that for all her brilliance, Simmons is very, very wrong about JARVIS and the bots here, just as she's canonically wrong about Inhumans and other metahumans.

**Challenge/Competition Block:****  
Stacked with: **MC4A (SpBingo; Ship; War; BAON; ToS; StL; SIN; Star; Fence; ER; T3; SN; FR; O3)**  
Individual Challenges: **Flags & Ribbons; Team Logic; Serial Marvel; Location, Location, Location; Trope It Up B ["I don't believe in X."] (Y); Laws (Y); Themes & Things A [Love] (Y); Themes & Things B [Deception] (Y); Real Family; Short Jog; The Second Phrase; Seeds; SHIELD MC (x3); Hydra MC (x1); Rising Tide MC (x1); More than England  
**Space Address (Prompt):** Spring Bingo [5A] (Love)  
**Representation(s):** IronAgent/QPR; Superheroes/Government Service; Team Bus  
**Bonus Challenge(s): **Lovely Coconuts; Second Verse (Ladylike; Not a Lamp; Persistence Still; White Dress; Found Family; Nontraditional; Zucchini Bread; Middle Name; Mother Hen; Nightingale; Unwanted Advice; Lock & Key); Chorus (Endless Wonder; Pear-Shaped; Wabi Sabi; Bee Haven; Fizzy Lemonade; Peddling Pots; Tomorrow's Shade; A Long Dog; Eternal Boredom; Larger than Life; Unicorn)  
**Tertiary Bonus Challenge(s):** T3 (Tether); SN (Rail); FR (Liberation); O3 (Orator; Oust)**  
Word Count:** 1809

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**Some Recovered Things**  
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"Jealousy, that dragon which slays love under the pretence of keeping it safe." – Havelock Ellis  
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"I don't see why this was considered a rescue mission," Ward commented as he stood next to Simmons outside the lab's glass doors. Inside, Skye and Fitz were rushing between the three bots they had recovered. The voice of the AI that had taken over most of the Bus' computing systems could be heard through the glass. He understood how much of a win this could be—that was unreleased Stark Tech in that room, practically unguarded—but having a computer running much of their systems struck him as a setup for disaster. That was beyond the increasing frustration with how the _tech_ was being treated like _people_. Especially when it meant that Skye was paying more attention to a stupid robot (it was even called _Dummy,_ for pete's sake!), Ward wanted to scream or stab something.

At least Simmons seemed to share his confusion. Ward was certain there was going to more knockback from the little pseudo-fight she and Fitz had over JARVIS control the Bus. That had been a little surprising. There was, after all, a reason that the two scientists were commonly referenced as a single entity. They might bicker or snipe at each other but aside from their first few months at the Sci-Tech, the duo had been inseparable. Not five minutes into the briefing for the so-called rescue mission and they were engaged in a passive-aggressive war.

There was no way this wasn't going to end well. There was no way it could.

"Some people prefer to think that if something appears human-like," Simmons replied, her valiant attempt at neutrality not quite covering her bitterness, "then it deserves the same consideration as a person. That isn't true, of course. Just because something is capable of passing the Turing Test, it doesn't mean that it is capable of true sentience. And even trying to create sentience is the very height of irresponsible, because there are distinctive traits unique to humans that cannot be coded into existence and without those traits, the attempt will end badly. Every good scientist knows this. Fitz will remember it. _Later_. When he's not distracted by being a fan."

"So you're not a fan?" Ward asked. Simmons turned towards him sharply, as if the question had been an accusation. He held his hands up in an attempt to placate the English woman's temper. "I just thought Tony Stark was some kind of god to all you nerd types, regardless of field. Even Skye's been fangirling since the briefing, and she's very anti-government like all hackers."

"Dr. Stark is more than a weapons designer, you know," Simmons replied waspishly. There was no attempt to hide the bitterness in her tone now. Each word sounded like saying them was painful. "He's been in the forefront of most scientific fields that he bothers to become involved in and occasionally, when he gets inevitably bored and moves on, he'll come back to publish a paper or patent to take the top spot again. It's very vexing because there's no way to compete in an already viciously cutthroat world. Yet he has no problem with academic challenge, seems to love it actually, and if you manage to find a flaw in one of his designs or prove his conclusion incorrect, he awards a grant for the research project of your choice that is not reliant upon the offer to join one of his companies that accompanies it. I've read the contract for those offers, you know. It's a good deal, working for Stark Industries or one of its subsidiaries, working _for him_.

"You seem surprised that Skye would like him, because she's anti-government, but I'm not. Stark Industries was the lead contractor for the US military but again, it wasn't all weapons, not since shortly after Tony Stark made headlines for building an engine when he was six. There were body armor designs, and vehicle upgrades, and a dozen other things. There were even more things that _weren't weapons_ after Dr. Stark took over as CEO. The man also created other things using the funds garnered from the military contracts, things like intelli-crops that could pass peer-reviews for safety and water filtration systems capable of removing micro-organisms. All of which he made available to those most in need of them through various charitable foundations. He created a lot of those, you know. I know you Americans tend to overlook that, but Dr. Stark really shouldn't be lumped in with the other members of your one-percent."

"So you're saying that Stark's SHIELD assessment was not only off the mark but the complete opposite of the truth? I don't buy that."

"I just think that SHIELD should have known that Dr. Stark wouldn't see the need to work in the shadows on anything when his entire life and career has been about transparency and accountability amongst his peers. Regardless of his work now as Iron Man, Tony Stark is a scientist, and scientists are not spies. I know that you had the same thought within two minutes of meeting Fitz and me. It's most of the reason for the rivalry between Sci-Tech and Tac-Ops. You punch things and get all fighty. We create things and strive to understand before all else. Sometimes we make mistakes, like thinking an AI should be treated just the same as a person, but eventually, we always learn from those mistakes."

"Let's hope that's true for everyone on this plane," Coulson said coming up behind them.

Ward bit back a curse as he jumped. If there was something he hated about this assignment more than playing the part of a Midwestern good ol' boy, it was being around people who seemed to just bleed out of the woodwork. Even Garrett hadn't been able to actually surprise him for years now. That both May and Coulson could just meant that they had clearly earned their progression through the ranks of SHIELD. Ward didn't know what to think about the fact that Skye could pull off the same trick.

"Our next location just turned into a hot zone," Coulson continued before either Simmons or Ward could respond. The senior agent looked calm, but the sixth sense Ward had developed under his father and then Garrett told him that there was a fair amount of anger simmering under the façade. Ward wondered if that was whatever experiment that had saved his life breaking down. Was he still stable? "We don't have much in the way of intel, but from what we do have, it appears that there are multiple hostiles who have been enhanced with a serum similar to Centipede. Simmons, I need whatever backups we have of the suppression shots we used on Peterson. They may not work, but they're still our best chance."

"Sir, do we have back up coming?" Ward questioned as Simmons hurried into the bio lab for the requested shots. He may be itching for a nice fight, but he was still attached to the idea of living. Something had to be said. "Peterson was not exactly a walk in the park. Multiple hostiles with the same capabilities? That's suicide for only three combatants."

"Sir has initiated the House Party Protocol," cut in the AI. If the damn thing had been human, Ward would have said it sounded smug. "There are currently thirty-six suits inbound to augment the presence of Col. Rhodes and Sir. I suspect but cannot confirm that Ms. Potts will be joining the combat once she catches her breath. War Machine is currently removing Eagle One from the immediate danger zone. Your ETA is seven minutes fifty-two seconds. May I suggest not attempting any kind of landing since the target location is an oil rig?"

"Been a while since I made a jump," Coulson commented drily. "Should be fun. I need you to tandem with Skye. Your goal is to get Skye to their computer systems. We need everything they have on the Centipede knock-off. We might have civilians infected and that information will give us treatment options."

"J-Man said you wanted me?" Skye said, poking her head out of the engineering lab. Coulson nodded and gestures in the direction of the flight deck. Skye continued as the three of them made their way at a fast pace, debriefing on the move. "Fitz has the boys safely settled. The degradation of the internal memory was pretty bad, but most of the procedural coding looked to still be intact. I'm not gonna lie, AC. I'm good, but that? It's a programmer's Sistine Chapel. I might be able to do first aid, but they're gonna need their daddy to really know if they're alright or not."

"That's why I need you in the complex, Skye. Someone needs to grab the data from the computers on site and I have a feeling that I'm going to have my hands full."

"Three minutes twenty-nine seconds," the AI announced just as they hit the flight deck. May was already strapped into her jump gear and had the other sets arranged for them. There really wasn't any time to waste. Then it rushed on, giving a good impression of fearful panic. "My sensors indicate that Ms. Potts is in immediate danger of a potentially fatal fall. Calculated odds of successful retrieval are alarming low."

"May," Coulson said, already mostly into his gear. The specialist gave a sharp nod as if her name was an order she was acknowledging. She gave a few tugs to Coulson's straps as he finished them. Checks finished, May turned to do the same to Skye's gear. Only through long practice was Ward able to suppress the urge to snarl or otherwise let on how much he didn't want anyone near the hacker. It was bad enough that Skye had spent the afternoon ignoring him.

Sharp tugs to his straps dragged his attention away from the women to Coulson's deliberately blank face. The tug on the last strap was harder than strictly necessary, making him stumble half a step forward. Coulson kept ahold of it, forcing Ward into a leaning position that would mask anything spoken below a normal speaking volume.

"I'm out of both time and patience, so I am going to be blunt. Protection is fine," Coulson said, a core of iron and steel running through every word. The look in his eyes was harder and more threatening than anything Garrett had ever managed, even when looking at an enemy. Ward stilled under the gaze, once more feeling like a prey before a predator. "But when possessiveness moves towards limitation, you will lose her, and if you even try to isolate her, there's plenty of ways for you to disappear without her ever suspecting a thing. Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir," Ward answered, without hesitation or needing to think about what agreeing might cost.

Skye was worth _anything_.

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To Be Continued  
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	3. Rhodey

**Warnings: **In addition to potential offensive content, this chapter has a discussion of blatant mind-fuckery. There's also more references to Tony not being in a good place mentally, due to grief on top of everything else.

**Author's Note:** This is the last of the finished parts that I have for y'all right now. I'm still working on finishing the last two scenes (I've got parts of both written). In unrelated news, Rhodey definitely has a thing for BAMF women who can crush him in some way. That might have influenced this scene.

**Challenge/Competition Block:****  
Stacked with: **MC4A (SuBingo; Ship; War; FPC; BAON; ToS; SIN; Star; Fence; AV; FR; O3)**  
Individual Challenges: **Flags & Ribbons (Y); Short Jog; Real Family; Rian-Russo Inversion; Old Shoes; Team Logic; Marvelous Cinema; Serial Marvel; Location, Location, Location; Themes & Things A [Love] (Y); Themes & Things B [Protection] (Y); The Second Phase; Seeds; Metahuman MC; SHIELD MC; Ethnic & Present  
**Space Address (Prompt):** Summer Bingo [4C] (Red)  
**Representation(s):** Tony Stark/James "Rhodey" Rhodes QPR; Superheroes/Government Service; Team Bus/Defense Squad; BAMF Melinda May  
**Bonus Challenge(s): **Lovely Coconuts; Wind Beneath; Second Verse (Ladylike; Not a Lamp; Persistence Still; White Dress; Found Family; Nontraditional; Zucchini Bread; Middle Name; Unwanted Advice); Chorus (Tomorrow's Shade; Larger than Life; Unicorn)  
**Tertiary Bonus Challenge(s):** FR (Liberation); O3 (Olivine)**  
Word Count:** 1041

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**Some Recovered Things**  
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"A protector can't protect someone who does not wish to be protected." – Dan Lord  
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Firefights were always chaos. Any firefight that involved actual fire were always worse. Flames always made telling who was a friendly and who was a foe a bit difficult. In this case, at least, there was a couple of defining characteristics which certainly helped. If they glowed, then they weren't a friendly. If they were some version of the suit, then they were.

Other than those two groups, it should have only been Pepper, Tony, and himself. Tony hadn't mentioned calling in any additional help, and James hadn't wanted to suggest doing so. He might not know exactly what had happened to push a wedge between SHIELD's would-be superhero team and Tony, but he couldn't stop himself from being _relieved_ about it. After the shit Romanoff pulled during Tony's problems with the reactor and the Whiplash situation, James was happy to have the spy _away_ from Tony while he was vulnerable. That went double for _Captain America_, because anything the man did or said would be amplified in Tony's mind because of his past interactions with the likes of Howard and Peggy. Phil having been a fan also wouldn't help.

Regardless of what Tony tried to convince the world of, James knew that Tony was taking the death of his primary partner hard. James didn't need any details to know that this whole stupid adventure had more than a little bit to do with that. It stank of the same self-destructive recklessness that Tony defaulted to when he hit his lowest points. James was already on all kinds of edges being in combat with Tony when the guy obviously didn't care if he lived through it. Not having eyes on Tony wasn't helping that.

All in all, James really didn't think he was to blame for almost shooting Melinda when they ran into each other. He was aware that he only managed to get her pressed against the wall of the rig because she chose to let him. He was good at hand to hand, but he primarily fought in a plane or in his suit. Even then, Melinda May was on another level entirely.

"Rhodes," Melinda greeted. Her tone was the hard and flat one she used in professional settings or to be extra intimidating in personal ones. He immediately dropped back. Getting his ass beat by an enemy was one thing; having a friendly do it would be another. Tony would never let him live that down. "I brought my team—three are in the field, two on our transport. Two of the field are on tech pull—a civie tech with a dry specialist as escort. Dry combatant already headed up top where Stark was last seen."

"Damn it, May," James snapped, cutting himself by rubbing his free hand over his face. "Tony doesn't have his head completely right now. Better warn your guy that he's likely to experience friendly fire."

"Oh, _gladly_," Melinda said with a smile that would have been at home on a shark. James shivered despite the flames around them. She raised a hand to touch her earbud comm unit. "Coulson, Rhodes says Stark's likely to shoot you. I'm betting you takeout that it won't be with a repulsor."

"I'm gonna kill Fury," James snarled as the implication hit home and a rage-red haze wrapped about him like a cloak. If the director had been in front of him, James wouldn't have gladly strangled the man without an ounce of guilt. Tony had been spiraling towards a fiery end despite all of their best efforts, and meanwhile, the best stabilizing factor had been alive? No way that Phil would have stayed away unless that one-eyed bastard had done something.

"There's a line," Melinda informed him coolly. "Depending on the outcome of the next few hours, JARVIS may beat us all to the punch. Personally, I wouldn't even be mad about that, because I know for a fact that Fury doesn't have an ALPHA plan for _him_."

"You and irony," James said. As one, the pair took off towards the main portion of the ongoing fight. Without breaking stride, James continued speaking. "I thought you didn't like JARVIS—your exact words were 'Skynet would be less creepy' if I recall correctly."

"Well, he grows on you," Melinda replied.

"Like a fungus," James agreed.

"I knew there was a reason that you were my favorite."

"I'm _everyone's_ favorite."

"How do the birds ever get off the ground with that ego aboard?"

"Fuck you, May."

"In your dreams, Rhodes."

"And you had to make it weird."

"Learned from the best."

"You're officially no longer allowed to hang out with Tones."

"You're just jealous that the bots like me better."

"Can't be jealous of what isn't true," James countered. He pointed towards a metal ladder that led a catwalk that should connect with the main rigging area that Tony had been last.

"Whatever you need to tell yourself," Melinda quipped before scaling the ladder with an ease that just underlined the difference between field operatives and combat pilots. He was good enough that he had an over ninety percent success rate on his field missions, but he would never make it look as easy as she did. He followed her up and then accepted the help onto the catwalk itself.

"So, you gonna give _me_ a reason to not shoot him?"

"We live in a comic book, and Fury needs to be reminded that he's a smaller player than he thinks."

"Mind control or memory erasure?" James asked after heaving a deep sigh. Melinda's face stayed blankly impassive. He felt a little sick. "How bad?"

"He does not remember having any interactions with Stark and I'm still working out the extent of the implanted behaviors. Ask him about Tahiti some time."

"_Fuck_."

"Succinct," Melinda agreed. Her lips curled just enough to show a hint of teeth, a warning of the predatory rage she was probably feeling. James certainly had his own fair share at the idea. She gestured to the other end of the catwalk, where they could see multiple forms engaged in combat. With all the suits on site, the shadowy forms could just as likely be empty. "Shall we?"

"Let's."

And they stalked into battle together.

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To Be Continued  
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End file.
